The Secret Wedding Dress

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’LL be damned,’ said Gabe to the dark wood panelling on the inside of the lift doors as he rubbed at the back of one hand with his thumb where the heat from the touch of his new neighbour’s skin still registered.

During the endless trudge through Customs, the drive from the airport with its view over Melbourne’s damp grey cityscape, then with the winter wind blowing in off Port Phillip Bay and leaching through his clothes to his very bones as he’d waited for the cabbie’s credit card machine to work, Gabe had struggled to find one thing about Melbourne that had a hope in hell of inducing him to stay a minute longer than absolutely necessary.

Then fate had slanted him a sly wink in the form of a neighbour with wintry blue eyes, legs that went on for ever, and blonde tousled waves cool enough to bring Hitchcock himself back to life. Hell, the woman even had the restive spark in her eye of a classic Hitchcock blonde; fair warning to any men who dared enter it would be at their own peril.

Not that he needed any such warning. Three seconds after he signed whatever his business partner, Nate, wanted him to sign he’d be on the kerb whistling for a cab to get him back to the airport. Not even the kick of chemistry that had turned the small space of the lift into a travelling hothouse would change that.

Gabe rehitched his bags, then shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his jacket, closed his eyes and leant back into the corner of the lift. As the memory of where he was, and why he’d left in the first place, pressed against the corners of his mind he shook it off. And, merely because it was better than the alternative, he let his thoughts run to the cool blonde instead.

About the way she’d nibbled at her full lower lip, as if it tasted so good she couldn’t help herself. And the scent of her that had filled the small space, sweet and sharp and delicious, making his gut tighten like a man who hadn’t eaten in a week. As for the way she’d looked at him as if he was some great inconvenience one moment, and the next as if she wanted nothing more than to eat him up with a spoon …?

‘Wow,’ he shot out, eyes flying open, hands gripping the railing that ran hip high along the back of the lift, feet spread wider to combat the sudden sense that his centre of gravity had shifted. The lift had rocked. Hadn’t it? Try as he might he felt nothing but the gentle sway as it rose through the shaft.

Jet lag, he thought. Or vertigo. He sniffed out a laugh. He had Hitchcock on the brain. The guy was no dummy and was also clearly terrified of cool blondes. Did one thing inform the other? No doubt. If a woman looked like trouble, chances were she’d be trouble. And Gabe was a straight-up guy who preferred his pleasures the same.

He pulled himself to standing and ran both hands over his face. He needed sleep. Clearly. He imagined his custom-built king-sized bed which a week earlier he’d had shipped back from South America. The deal there was done anyway, and he’d ship it out again the second the next investment opportunity grabbed him. He imagined falling face down in the thing and sleeping for twelve hours straight.

For some, home was bricks and mortar. For others it was family. For Gabe it was where the work was. And wherever in the world he got wind of an exceptional business idea in need of someone with the guts and means to invest, that was where he sent his bed. And his pillow—flattened to the point he probably didn’t even need the thing. And his mattress with the man-shaped dint right smack bang in the middle that fitted his spreadeagled body to perfection.

Moments before he fell asleep on his feet the lift deposited him neatly at his floor. Exactly as it was made to do.

Gabe yawned till his ears popped, fumbled for the keys to the apartment he’d never seen. The apartment he’d bought to shut Nate up, when Nate had maintained he needed a place in Melbourne considering the company they jointly owned was based there.

He stood in the open doorway. Compared with the bare-bones hotel room that had been home the past few months it was gargantuan, taking up the entire top floor of the building. And yet somehow claustrophobic with its dark colour palette and the huge grey windows along one wall that matched the drizzly grey world outside them.

‘Well, Gabe,’ he said to his blurry reflection, ‘you’re certainly not in Rio any more.’

He slid the carry-on and laptop bags from his shoulder onto the only piece of furniture in the whole room, a long L-shaped black lounge that cut the space in half. Only to be met with a loud ‘Arghuraguragh!’

Jet lag and/or vertigo gone in an instant, Gabe spun on his heel, fists raised, heart thundering in his chest, to find a man reposing on his couch.

‘Nate,’ Gabe said, bent at the waist, hands on his knees as he dragged his breath back to normal. ‘You scared me half to death.’

Gabe’s best mate and business partner sat up, his hair sticking up at the side of his head. ‘Making sure you got here in one piece.’

‘Making sure I arrived at all, more like.’ Gabe stood, cricked his back. ‘Tell me you went one better and filled my fridge.’

‘Sorry. Did get doughnuts though. They’re on the bench.’

Gabe glanced at the familiar white box as he passed it on the way to the silver monolith of a fridge, opening it to find it was empty bar the maker’s instructions. A frisson of disquiet skittered down his spine. If that wasn’t ready …

He strode across the gargantuan space towards the great double doors he could only assume led to the bedroom, whipped them open to find—

No bed.

Swearing beneath his breath, Gabe ran his hand up and down the back of his neck so fast he felt sparks.

Nate’s hand landed upon his shoulder a half-second before his laughter. ‘Your couch looks a treat but it’s not in the least bit comfortable.’

‘You didn’t seem to mind a moment ago,’ Gabe growled.

‘I can power-nap anywhere. It’s a gift born of chronic insomnia.’

Gabe slowly and deliberately shut the bedroom doors, unable to even look at the space where his bed ought to be.

‘Hotel?’

‘The thought of going back out into that cold is making my teeth ache.’

‘I’d offer my couch, but it’s my decorator’s cruel joke. Godawful leather thing with buttons all over it.’

‘Thanks, but I’d be afraid I’d catch something.’

Nate grinned and backed away. ‘I have seen with my own two eyes that you’re here, so my work is done. Catch you at the office Monday. Remember where it is?’

Gabe’s answer was a flat stare. He was lucky—or unlucky more like—to end up in Melbourne once every two or three years, but he knew where his paychecks came from.

Nate clicked his fingers as he wavered at the front door. ‘Almost forgot. Need to make a right hullabaloo now you’re back. Housewarming party Friday night.’

Gabe shook his head. He’d be long gone by Friday. Wouldn’t he?

‘Too late,’ said Nate. ‘Already in motion. Alex and some of the old uni gang are coming. A few clients. Some fine women I met walking the promenade just now—’

‘Nate—’

‘Hey, consider yourself lucky. I’m so giddy you’re here I contemplated dropping flyers from a plane.’

And then Nate was gone. Leaving Gabe in his dark, cavernous, cold, empty apartment. Alone. The grey mist of Port Phillip Bay closing in on his wall of windows like a swarm of bad memories, pretty much summing up how he felt about the possibility that he might still be there in a week’s time.

Before he turned into a human icicle, Gabe tracked down the remote for the air-con and cranked it up as hot as it would go.

He found some bed linen in a closet, then, back in his bedroom doorway, looked glumly at the empty space where his bed ought to be. He stripped down to his smalls and made a pile with blankets and a too big pillow and lay down on the floor, and the second he closed his eyes fatigue dragged him into instant sleep.

And he dreamt.

Of a cool feminine hand stroking the hair at the back of his neck, a hot red convertible rumbling beneath his thighs as he eased it masterfully around the precarious roads of a cliff face somewhere in the south of France. When the car pulled into a lookout, the cool owner of the cool hand slid her cool blonde self onto his lap, her sweet sharp scent hitting the back of his mouth a half-second before her tongue followed. Gabe’s dream self thought, Hitchcock, eat your heart out.

That night at The Brasserie—one of a string of crowded restaurants lining the New Quay Promenade—when Mae told her fiancé, Clint, about Paige’s little purchase, he choked on his food. Literally. A waiter had to give him the Heimlich. They made quite a stir, ending up with the entire restaurant cheering and Paige hunching over her potato wedges and hiding her face behind both hands.

Clint recovered remarkably to ask, ‘So what happened between us pouring you into a cab after drinks last night and this morning to have cured you of your no-marriage-for-Paige-ever stance? Cabbie give you the ride of your life?’

Paige dropped her fingers to give Clint a blank stare. Grinning, he put his hands up in surrender before smartly returning to checking the footy scores on his phone.

She didn’t bother telling him there had not been any curing her doubt as to the existence of happily ever afters. But she neglected to say that there had been one ride she couldn’t seem to wipe from her mind. A ride in a lift with some kind of tall, dark and handsome inducement that got a girl to thinking about all sorts of things she wouldn’t admit out loud without the assistance of too many cocktails.

She dropped her hands to her belly where she could still feel the hum of his deep voice.

As she’d done a dozen times through the day, she brought her thoughts back to the fluoro white bag covered in hot-pink writing currently hanging over the back of her dining chair.

The fact that Gabe Hamilton had got his flirt on while she was carrying a wedding dress made him indiscriminate at best. And the kind of man she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Fidelity meant a great deal to Paige. She’d worked for the same company since uni. Had the same best friend since primary school. She’d drive twenty minutes to get her favourite Thai takeaway. She’d watched her own mum crumble before her very eyes as her father confirmed his own disloyalty again and again and again.

‘Humona humona,’ Mae murmured, or something along those lines, dragging Paige back to the present. ‘Move over, Captain Jack, there’s a new pirate in town.’

Clint glanced up. Whatever he saw was clearly of little interest as he saw his chance to sneak a pork rib from Mae’s plate then went back to his phone.

Paige gave into curiosity and turned to look over her shoulder, her heart missing a beat, again, when she found Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome himself warming his large hands by the open fire in the centre of the room, his dark hair curling slightly over the collar of his bulky jacket, feet shoulder width apart.

‘Look how he’s standing,’ Mae said, her voice a growl.

As if used to keeping himself upright in stormy seas, Paige thought.

Mae had other ideas. ‘Like he needs all that extra room for his package.’

‘Mae!’

Mae shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. Not when you could be looking at him.’

Paige tried not to look, she really did. But while her head knew it was best to forget about him, her hormones apparently had fuzzier principles. She looked in time to see him push a flap of his leather jacket aside and glide his phone from an inside pocket, revealing a broad expanse of chest covered by a faded T-shirt. Paige wasn’t sure which move had her salivating more—the brief flash of toned brown male belly as his T had lifted, or the rhythmic slide of his thumb over the screen of his phone.

And then he turned, his dark eyes scouring the large space.

‘Get down!’ Paige spun around and hunkered down in her seat until she was half under the table. It was only when she realised neither of her friends had said anything that she glanced up to find them both watching her with their mouths hanging open.

‘Whatcha doin’ down there?’ Mae asked.

Paige slowly pulled herself upright. Then, wishing she had eyes in the back of her head, she muttered, ‘I know him.’

‘Him? Oh, him. Who is he?’

‘Gabe Hamilton. He’s moved in upstairs. We met in the lift this morning.’

‘Annnnndddd?’ Mae said, by that stage bouncing on her chair.

‘Sit still. You’re getting all excited for nothing. I tried to shut the door on his fingers. He suggested the lift and I were trapped in a passive-aggressive romantic entanglement. It was all very … awkward.’

Mae kept grinning, and Paige realised she was squirming on her seat.

She threw her hands in the air. ‘Okay, fine, so he’s gorgeous. And smells like he’s come from building his own log cabin. And there might have been a little flirting.’ When Mae began to clap, Paige raised a hand to cut her off. ‘Oh no. That’s not the best part. This all happened right after you dropped me off. While. I. Was. Carrying. The. Wedding. Dress.’

‘But didn’t you explain—?’

‘How exactly? So, sexy stranger, see this brand new wedding dress I’m clutching? Ignore it. Means nothing. I’m free and clear and all yours if ya want me.’

‘That’d work for me,’ Clint said, nodding sagely.

Mae smacked him across the chest. He grinned and went back to pretending he wasn’t listening.

‘I blame you, and your man-drought theory,’ Paige said. ‘I would have been hard pressed not to flutter my eyelashes at anyone at that point.’

‘Like if Sam the Super had turned up she would have wanted to ravage him in the lift?’ Mae muttered, shaking her head as if Paige had gone loco.

Paige couldn’t stop feeling as if the world was tilting beneath her chair. Mae, of all people, should have understood her need for absolutes. The old Mae would, what with her own father’s inability to be faithful. This new Mae, the engaged Mae, was too blinded by her own romance to see straight.

Paige fought the desire to shake some sense into her friend. Instead she reached for her cocktail, gulping down a mouthful of the cold tart liquid.

‘It’s all probably moot anyway,’ Mae said, sighing afresh. ‘That man is from a whole other dimension. One where men date nuclear physicists who model in their spare time. Or he’s gay.’

‘Not gay,’ Paige said, remembering the way his gaze had caressed her face. The certainty he’d been moving closer to her the whole ride, inch by big hot inch. Jet lag or no, there’d been something there. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Anyway. It doesn’t matter either way. A man who flirts with a woman holding a wedding dress ought to be neutered.’

‘Well, my sweet,’ said Mae, perking up, ‘you’ll have the chance to tell him so. Because he’s coming this way.’

Gabe had been about to leave when he’d seen her.

Well, he’d seen her dinner companion first—a redhead with wild curls and no qualms about staring at strangers. After which he’d noticed his fine and fidgety neighbour’s blonde waves tumbling down a back turned emphatically in his direction. If she’d given him a smile and a wave he might well have waved and gone home. But the fact that the woman he’d planned to ignore was ignoring him right on back tugged at his perverse gene and sent him walking her way.

‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Eighth Floor,’ he said, resting a hand on the back of her chair.

Paige turned, her eyebrows raised, her smile cool. But the second her deep blue eyes locked onto his, his blood thickened, his lungs got tight, and he felt a sudden surge of affection for the hard floor of his room.

Hitchcock be damned, he thought as the memory of those cool blonde waves tickling his chest as she’d ridden him in his convertible slammed into his head. It might only have been a dream but his libido clearly didn’t give a lick. ‘When I said I’d see you around I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so soon.’

‘Living in the same building we’ll be bound to run into one another.’

‘Lucky us.’ He gave her a smile, the kind he knew gave off all the right signals. Her eyes flared, but she physically pulled her reaction back. In fact from her pale pink fingernails gripping the table, to the ends of her gorgeously tousled hair, she screamed high maintenance. Complication. Trouble.

And yet the smile tugged higher at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe it was the challenge. Maybe it was the dream. Maybe it was that he suddenly had time on his hands, time he’d rather spend in doing than thinking. But as Gabe looked into those hot and cold blue eyes he knew he was going to get to know this woman.

A loud clearing of the throat sent them both looking to Paige’s friend.

Paige said, ‘Gabe Hamilton, this is my friend Mae. Her fiancé, Clint.’

Leaning across the table to shake hands with enthusiasm, Mae said, ‘I hear you’ve just flown in from overseas.’

When the table shook and Mae scrunched up her face, Gabe got the feeling she’d been duly kicked under the table. So Little Miss Cool had been talking about him to her friends, had she? Perhaps this would be easier than he thought. Though rather than that taking the edge off the challenge, the energy inside coiled tighter still.

He sourced a spare chair at the next table and dragged it over, sliding it next to Paige, who pretended she’d suddenly found a mark on her dinner plate fascinating.